Blogger #13 - Oriana Huang - Period 1 - 11/23/2020 - Day A - Freshmen 2021

Blogger #13- Oriana Huang- Period 1- 11/23/20- Day A- Freshman 2021


Freshman Lit 2021


Aim: How does Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Bells” convey and reinforce the meaning of the life cycle through his choice of poetic sound devices?


Do now: TEAM CHALLENGE

In the beginning of the class, we went into breakout rooms and we were challenged to name all the bells we knew. Then, we would all come back together and the team that had the most bells named would win. I was in Team 4 and we came up with 6 bells that included school bells, a doorbell, church bells, liberty bells, cow bells, Christmas bells.



Oh Woe is Poe! PDF



In class, we spirit read this story and concluded that Edgar Allen Poe had lost many of his loved ones due to tuberculosis. Because of this curse on him, he decided to write poems about his life which became popular but didn’t pay him well due to the absence of copyright laws during that time. He moved all over the place and became a drunk addict which then led to people avoiding him. He disappeared for a while but came back to a bar in Baltimore crazy. Edgar was brought to the hospital still supposedly acting drunk. They waited 4 days but he was still the same. He was then declared dead with possible causes including rabies. After discussing what we have concluded about this story, we all compared this story and connected it to pictures. These are just some of the pictures we discussed below.



The first picture represented the people that were close with Edgar dying from tuberculosis. The second picture with the bottle of an unknown liquid and a cup was assumed as alcohol and that connected to Edgar having an alcohol addiction. The third picture correlates to the death of Edgar Allen Poe. Edgar was suspected to die from rabies and rabies can come from racoons. Therefore, the third picture of the racoon would be connected to the death of Edgar Allen Poe.


Poetic Sound Devices:

Musical or sound devices: convey and reinforce meaning (or experience) through the use of sound

• Cacophony: Cacophony comes from the Greek word meaning, “bad sound.” Or Involving or producing a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds. In other words, consider the noises you may hear on a crowded city street: cars honking, people yelling, dogs barking etc…
• Explosive Consonants: (k, t, g, d, p, b, q, c, x, ch-, sh- etc...) 
• Hissing Sounds: (ch-, sh, and s)
• Example: He is a rotten, dirty, terrible, trudging, stupid dude!
• Cacophony can be used to convey dark feelings/thoughts, harsh or loud noises, chaos, violence or fear.

Think/Pair/Share: Highlight or underline words that are cacophonous, in the following examples.


1) “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!” (“The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll)


2) “I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments…”

(Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift)

• Euphonious: involving sounds that are soothing or pleasant to the ear. It is the opposite of cacophony.
• It includes all the vowels
• It has harmonious consonants, such as: (l, m, n, r and softer f and v, sounds).
• Additionally, it uses soft consonants or semi-vowels such as: (w, s, y and th or wh) extensively to create more pleasant sounds.
• Example: “While the stars that oversprinkle all the heavens seem to twinkle” -Edgar Allen Poe
• Euphony is used to make language sound beautiful and melodic. If a writer is describing something they want to make seem attractive, pleasant, or beautiful, one of the best ways of achieving this is to make the language itself sound harmonious.

Think/Pair/Share: Highlight or underline words that are euphonious, in the following examples.


1) “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” (“Ode to Autumn” by John Keats)


“While the stars that oversprinkle/All the heavens seem to twinkle” (“The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe)

• Alliteration: A stylistic device in which consecutive words or words that occur close together in a series all begin with the same first consonant letter or sound
• Example: Jackrabbits jump and jiggle jauntily.

While discussing what alliterations were, we watched a video along with it for better understanding. This is the link to the video: Red Room Poetry Object Poetic Device #1: Alliteration [2:00]

• Onomatopoeia: A word which imitates the natural sound of a thing.
• Example: The buzzing bee flew by
• Example: The rustling leaves kept me awake.

This is the link to a video about onomatopoeias: Red Room Poetry Object Poetic Device #4: Onomatopoeia [2:36]

• Repetition: Repeating words, phrases, lines, or stanzas. Repetition is used to emphasize a feeling or idea, create rhythm, and/or develop a sense of urgency
• Example: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

• Rhyme: a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words (especially common at the ends of words). Rhyme is pleasing the ear and also lends a sense of rhythm and order to the language.
• Perfect rhyme occurs when stressed syllables of the words, along with all subsequent syllables, share identical sounds (ex: pencil" and "stencil”) 
• Imperfect rhyme or “slant rhyme” involves the repetition of similar sounds that are not quite as precise as perfect rhyme (ex: “uptown” and “frown”)

As we discuss and dive in deeper to a further understanding of poetic sound devices, we watch a video about poetic pattern. This is the link to the video: The pleasure of poetic pattern - David Silverstein [4:46. The video talks about repetition and how it can bring positive aspects and negative aspects to your poem. Having repetition in your poem allows the reader to further understand the concepts and ideas of your poem but having too much repetition lacks the needs of a real poem. The video then goes over what we had discussed in class before such as alliteration.


After we had discussed all these poetic sound devices, we read “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe and put our knowledge of poetic sound devices to use. We then went into breakout rooms to complete the following chart and questions.

Link to “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe: https://poets.org/poem/bells

Link to Audio for “The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe: “The Bells” By Edgar Allan Poe (YouTube)





ANALYSIS OF POETRY



TEAM GROUP WORK


1. Analyze the first two stanzas. How do they compare, in terms of similarity?

The first two stanzas are similar since they both convey feelings of happiness. They both have positive feelings since they both use euphonious words.


2. Now, compare the bells in stanzas 1 and 2 with the bells in stanzas 3 and 4. How does Poe's mood shift in his poem?

Like said from before, stanzas 1 and 2 describes the bells with positive and euphonious words. However, both stanzas 3 and 4 convey negative feelings and use cacophonous words. This was the mood shift in his poem.


3. How does Poe use sound devices to imitate the sound of bells?
    a. Compile a list of the devices you believe he used.

Poe uses sound devices to imitate the sound of bells with repetition, rhyme, and onomatopoeia. For example, he uses descriptive words such as, “How they ring out their delight.”


4. This poem is as much about sound as it is about meaning.

    a. Why do you think Poe places a heavy emphasis on sound in this poem?

    b. What message does it help to express?

    c. How is this poem symbolically a metaphor for life?

Poe places a heavy emphasis on sound in this poem because he wants the reader to understand and picture the feelings these bells carry with them. The message it helps spread is that there are many different feelings in life. This poem is symbolically a metaphor for life because these bells represent each stage in life. For instance, the silver bells and the golden bells represent your youth because of the happiness it brings and the brazen and iron bells represent your adultery which then leads to death. This is connected to feelings of fear and misery.


REFLECTION

During this lesson, I was able to learn about many different poetic devices and have the opportunity to be able to read a story about Edgar Allen Poe and one of his poems. At first, I learned different bells that I never knew about during the Do Now thanks to my group mates. I learned about Edgar Allen Poe’s life story and how every person he was close with died from tuberculosis. I learned how due to all of these mishaps, Edgar went to poetry. I learned many poetic devices that consisted of alliterations, onomatopoeias, repetition, rhyme, cacophony, and euphony. This is because I would need these poetic devices to better understand the poem “The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe. Lastly, I learned deeper meanings and ideas of “The Bells” due to the help of poetic devices. For example, I was able to realize that these bells can represent stages in your life. The silver and golden bells can represent your youth and childhood while the brazen and iron bells represent the adultery and death in life. They have different feelings and meanings to them. I will use what I learned in this lesson to help with future lessons. My knowledge on poetic sound devices are extremely useful when reading other poems in the future and finding out deeper meanings. Thus, this lesson will help develop my understanding of poems.